In recent years, Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) technologies have emerged as a fast-growing market. Among the various WLAN technologies, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard is the dominating technology and is frequently used for WLANs.
Client devices within WLANs communicate with network devices such as access points to obtain access to one or more network resources. Access points are digital devices that may be communicatively coupled to one or more networks (e.g., Internet, an intranet, etc.). Access points may be directly connected to the one or more networks or connected via a controller. An access point, as referred to herein, may include a wireless access point (WAP) that communicates wirelessly with devices using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or related standards and that communicates with a wired network.
Errors may result when a client device that is communicatively coupled to a first access point on a first IP subnet connects with a second access point on a different second IP subnet without renewing the dynamic IP address. The dynamic IP address being associated with the first IP subnet and being assigned to the client device when the client device was on the first IP subnet. In one example, this error may occur when different access points on different IP subnets advertise the same Basic Service Set Identification (BSSID). A client device switches connection from a particular network supported by one access point to another network with the same name but supported by another access point. The client device fails to determine that the new network is supported by a new access point on a different IP subnet which may require that the client device obtain a new IP address corresponding to the different IP subnet.
In another example, errors may result when multiple client devices on the same IP subnet attempt to use the same IP address.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.